Low-income countries … need an additional $308.5 billion a year … international support will be needed to reach this goal.
Half the world lacks social protection amid climate crisis, ILO warns
12 September 2024 Climate and Environment
Social protection is essential to safeguard people from shocks, but half the world is without any coverage, including over 90 per cent of people living in climate-vulnerable countries, according to a new report released on Thursday by the International Labour Organization (ILO).
Around 50 per cent of us do have access to at least one social protection benefit – but 3.8 billion people lack any kind of safety net, including 1.8 billion children worldwide, according to the World Social Protection Report 2024-26: Universal social protection for climate action and a just transition.
“Climate change does not recognise borders, and we cannot build a wall to keep the crisis out,” said Gilbert Houngbo, ILO Director-General. “The climate crisis affects us all and represents the single, gravest threat to social justice today.”
Findings showed that governments are failing to make full use of the powerful potential of social protection to counter the effects of the climate crisis and support a just transition to a greener future.
…
Low-income countries, including the most climate-vulnerable States, need an additional $308.5 billion a year, or 52.3 per cent of their GDP, to guarantee at least basic coverage and international support will be needed to reach this goal.
…
The report also recommends prioritising investment in social protection, including external support for countries with limited fiscal space.
Even if this money was somehow mustered, it would provide no benefit whatsoever for the intended recipients. The following is from Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati;
“For God’s Sake, Please Stop the Aid!”
The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.
04.07.2005, 00.00 Uhr
SPIEGEL:
Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa…
Shikwati: … for God’s sake, please just stop.
…
Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.
…
Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa’s problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn’t even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.
…
SPIEGEL: Following World War II, Germany only managed to get back on its feet because the Americans poured money into the country through the Marshall Plan. Wouldn’t that qualify as successful development aid?
Shikwati: In Germany’s case, only the destroyed infrastructure had to be repaired. Despite the economic crisis of the Weimar Republic, Germany was a highly- industrialized country before the war. The damages created by the tsunami in Thailand can also be fixed with a little money and some reconstruction aid. Africa, however, must take the first steps into modernity on its own. There must be a change in mentality. We have to stop perceiving ourselves as beggars. These days, Africans only perceive themselves as victims. On the other hand, no one can really picture an African as a businessman. In order to change the current situation, it would be helpful if the aid organizations were to pull out.
We all want to help – you would have to be utterly heartless to see a picture of a starving child in the midst of utter desolation, and not want to reach out and provide food and other assistance.
But according to Shikiwati, all of the help kind Westerners provide actually makes things worse, by perpetuating and worsening the economic dysfunction which led to that starvation.
The only thing we can do to make things better in poor nations is leave them to sort out their own mess, so they can learn how to be prosperous, the same way our ancestors learned how to create the prosperity they bequeathed to us.
